2011 chevrolet camaro Reviews and News

After being delayed for a while because of GM's whole bankruptcy/bailout thing, the Camaro convertible is finally here, completing the reborn Camaro lineup.

A convertible had been planned for the Camaro from the beginning, so the car was engineered for a topless existence. Still, the convertible does require extra bracing, including a large strut tower brace under the hood. Chevrolet engineers boast that the car is so structurally stiff that they did not have to soften the suspension for the convertible version, as is often done for convertibles. But maybe they should have.

The firm-riding Camaro SS convertible I just spent a week with exhibited plenty of body jiggle over patchy pavement. And despite the Camaro's independent rear suspension, this car can hop sideways when it encounters a bump mid-corner. The steering, though, is nicely accurate and has natural effort levels. The deep-dished wheel has a strangely shaped rim that's not terribly comfortable to hold, but I did love the design and function of the audio system controls on the spokes.

The big, 6.2-liter OHV V-8 in the Camaro SS isn't exactly quick-revving, but it ultimately makes so much brutish power (426 hp, with the manual transmission) that it gets the job done. Its deep exhaust rumble can be somewhat droning on the highway but you've gotta love the crackle and pop when you lift off the throttle. I only encountered the six-speed manual's obnoxious 1st-to-4th skip-shift once during my entire time with the car, which is a lot less than in the Camaro SS coupe I drove a few months ago -- maybe I was booting the accelerator more aggressively with this car (the skip-shift only asserts itself during gentle acceleration). In other respects, I was less pleased with the stick shift this time, as the clutch seemed heavy and shift action less fluid.

Chevrolet designers were able to get the convertible's soft top to very nearly match the profile of coupe's rakish roofline, which means that the convertible is every bit as handsome as its hardtop sibling. This is a car that gets a lot of attention and a lot of compliments. But as in the Camaro coupe, the good looks come at a price. With the top up, the convertible suffers the same claustrophobia and tough outward visibility through its slit-like windows as does the coupe. And even with the top down, the high beltline and steeply raked windshield diminish somewhat the open-air feeling.

Putting the top down requires untwisting a central latch before activating the adjacent power top switch. Like many of the better-designed convertibles today, the top stacks neatly enough in its well that one doesn't really need to bother attaching the soft boot -- which is good, because I never did. The lowered top does eat up some of the trunk space, and the trunk isn't that big to begin with (there's a divider thing so you know not to put luggage in its way).

Having the top down sheds more light onto the otherwise cave-like interior, and that may not be a good thing, because it exposes all the hard, grained plastic found on the dash, console, and door panels of even the uplevel 2SS model. The retro dash design, however, with its deep-set squared-off gauges, is pretty cool. Some people have criticized the location of the auxiliary gauges down on the console, but that's a nod to the original car and the fact that those gauges are not in your direct line of vision doesn't really matter because it's not stuff you need to obsessively monitor anyway. Once again, I loved the head-up display (which is standard on the 2SS); it's even more useful in the convertible, because the radio display washes out in the sunlight.

As with the coupe, the Camaro convertible offers a whole lot of performance and style for not a whole lot of money ($37,500, for a base SS). If you like the coupe, you'll like the convertible at least as much, and if you don't like the coupe, the convertible probably won't tip the balance. Its crosstown rival, the Ford Mustang GT, is probably a bit easier to live with on a daily basis, but that won't matter one bit if you're someone who likes the Camaro better or, maybe more importantly, someone who lusted after the original Camaro and not the original Mustang.

"Who dat!? Who dat!?" We're in a packed seafood joint -- one of about four such seafood joints on one block-reveling with some very happy, if somewhat inebriated, football fans. "Dat," of course, would be the latest team "dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints." Once again the Saints are vistorious. We're touring the Crescent City five years after Hurricane Katrina to take the pulse of recovery efforts from behind the wheel of a brand-new Chevrolet Camaro SS convertible. If the Saints' success and the crowds they draw are a sign of the city's resurgence, the Camaro convertible is a celebration for General Motors because it's exactly the sort of frivolous product a company on its last legs would never produce. Question is, are the Big Easy and the nation's biggest automaker really back in the swing of things?

First impressions would be a definitive "yes" on both counts. Even the coldest weather New Orleans has seen all year -- the General has in its curious corporate wisdom decided to launch the convertible in the dead of winter -- clearly hasn't dampened the evening scene. Football fans pour out of the renovated Superdome and join the usual throng of fun seekers in the French Quarter, strolling the streets and carrying alcoholic beverages with names like Hurricane. "This is the only city where you can have a storm and drink one at the same time," boasts one local. Recorded jazz and pop music from the bars compete with live performers on street corners. There's a guy singing into a bucket. Nude dancers? How about "Live Love Acts"?

You should be able to pass unnoticed through such a scene in a gunmetal gray Camaro. A gunmetal gray Camaro with no roof? That's another matter entirely. At a light on Canal Street, a young woman jumps out of her vehicle to point and shout, "I just love the Camaro! I hope y'all enjoy the rest of y'all's day!" At a voodoo shop, we get some sage advice: "I wouldn't be driving a convertible now. But maybe that's just me." The front desk clerks at our hotel ignore a Girls Gone Wild bus parked outside but vacate their stations to catch a glimpse of our topless beauty. A throng of young Camaro groupies materializes as if from thin air, taking pictures for Facebook and peppering us with impressively astute comments and questions. "Can you get the top in a color other than black?" Yes, tan. "Can you get a louder exhaust?" Not yet, but stay tuned. "I'd throw on some bigger wheels and drop it a few inches, but, really, it looks right already." Agreed on the last part. As with most cars developed during the Bob Lutz era at GM, designers got the first, second, and last word on the Camaro convertible, so it looks almost exactly like the 2007 concept. The top folds nearly flat, with no Volkswagen Beetle-like hump.

About the only thing that seems to elicit more feedback in New Orleans than our Chevy is the seemingly innocent question, "Where should we eat?" Everyone, it seems, has a list of ten restaurants we have to visit before we leave, and no one's list overlaps. The sheer multitude of popular restaurants tells a story of renewal that recent statistics seem to support. New Orleans's population is becoming wealthier and better educated. Tourism is strong, and the city's many colleges are expanding. No one downtown is willing to say he or she is thankful for the storm, but many have no problem predicting that it will lead to a better New Orleans. Oh, and the food rocks.

Meraux, Louisiana, about eight miles from downtown New Orleans, probably had plenty of good restaurants, too. But when we roll through the following morning, the only venue the locals can recommend for breakfast is McDonald's. The Golden Arches stand alone in front of a deserted shopping center, which, like everything else around here, was submerged under ten feet of water back in 2005. "My daughter used to work in that dollar store," drawls Claude Arnold, a native of nearby Chalmette. Like most of the pre-Katrina population here, he left before the storm hit and found nothing to returnto. "I had four inches of mud in my house. My furniture didn't look like furniture anymore."

Even with the sun shining, it's barely 40 degrees outside, and there's a stiff wind blowing off Lake Pontchartrain. Or is it coming from the Mississippi? Or the Gulf? Or one of the many canals? Or the marshlands? News flash: there's a lot of water around here. In any event, the Camaro's seat heaters are much appreciated, even if they don't provide as much bum-scorching comfort as those in convertibles like the Mazda Miata. There are a few other signs that the Camaro's cabin wasn't originally designed for top-down duty. The morning sun completely washes out the center radio display, and utility, already in short supply in the coupe, predictably becomes even more of a precious commodity. The trunk holds a respectable 10.2 cubic feet of luggage but shrinks to 7.9 with the top down. Whatever goes in there must fit through an acorn-size opening due to the trunk lid's origami cutline. On the plus side, the sunshine brings the dark interior out of the shadows, relieving the coupe's cavelike atmosphere.

With a healthy coating of McGrease in our bellies, we stop for some fruit. Philip Gomez, understandably stunned by the arrival at his roadside fruit stand of one of the first new Camaro convertibles in existence, barely lets us pay him for a grapefruit. A shrimper until very recently, Gomez reminds us that Katrina isn't the only disaster the area has recently weathered.

"We're not really making any money right now," he says, explaining that the BP oil spill ran his catch down to about 600 shrimp per day, from an early season average of 2000. Like most of the fishermen around here, he argues that the money made during the cleanup hardly fixes matters. "BP thinks they did us a favor [by hiring fishermen for the cleanup]. They ain't done us no favor."

As we head south toward the fishing village of Delacroix, the traffic clears enough to make way for the LS3 V-8's 426 hp. We wondered at first if the weight gained in chopping off the top-a shocking 258 pounds-would tame the V-8's bite. But through some engineering voodoo, the car feels as strong as ever even at a certifiably porky 4116 pounds, and the droptop will likely get the same 16/24 mpg city/highway rating as the coupe. The Camaro still doesn't jump off the line as ferociously as the lighter, live-rear-axle Ford Mustang, but the pushrod V-8 rips and snorts up to its 6600-rpm redline with an eagerness that puts most overhead-cam engines to shame. The Camaro's clutch and six-speed manual transmission are satisfyingly beefy, and the $380 Hurst short-throw shifter is very precise. (Convertibles equipped with an automatic transmission put out a slightly less impressive 400 hp and have a 6200-rpm redline.)

Delacroix was familiar with the dangers of flooding long before Hurricane Katrina. The camps here, mostly seasonal homes for sport and professional fishermen, were already raised on stilts. The storm surge, once it had blasted across the shriveled marshlands, knocked out the stilts and then the houses, too. Sometimes the water deposited them hundreds of feet away, along with the occasional upturned boat. More often, it simply wiped them off the face of the earth. "This all used to be houses and camps," Arnold says of the mostly desolate roadside. "It all disappeared without a trace, like it had never been there." Most haunting, though, are the trees. The few that still stand are visibly contorted and bent, as if still screaming in agony from the fury of the storm. Amazingly, little buds of green sprout from their branches.

The mostly empty two-lane road follows the gently meandering waterline -- about as close to a handling course as we'll find in this part of Louisiana. GM boasts that the convertible's platform, fortified with braces across the front strut tower and the transmission tunnel, has better torsional stiffness than that of a BMW 3-series droptop. It also still carries its flab fairly evenly, with a 52/48 weight distribution. That means the coupe and the convertible can share the same suspension setup, retuned slightly in both models to reduce understeer. Whether it's those tweaks or merely the power of suggestion, the Camaro does seem livelier. Thundering down one of the lazy bends at about 80 mph, the Camaro responds readily to throttle adjustments, even shrugging its hips gently at the lift of the gas pedal. The primary problem the Camaro has in the twisties remains one of perception. It simply feels too big and bulky to dance in corners like a true sports car. Rumor has it that the closely related Holden Commodore will soon receive increased aluminum parts content in an effort to lose weight. Let's hope the Camaro, which was engineered largely in Australia, will also benefit from that diet.

As we head out of Delacroix and start back toward the city, we finally submit to Old Man Winter and close the cloth roof. For about five minutes. It's not that there's anything wrong with the top-up experience. In fact, it's extremely quiet for a ragtop, and sight lines are no worse than the coupe's. No, the problem is that the attention and excitement that come with driving al fresco in a car so fast, sexy, and unapologetically masculine are dangerously addictive to the male ego. So, down goes the top at the next stop sign -- any faster than a crawl and it doesn't operate -- off goes the traction control, and on comes the classic rock. A dumped clutch, a nailedthrottle, and some opposite lock later, we're fishtailing back west toward the city to the competing sounds of V-8 roar and Jethro Tull. With all due respect to the jazz band that performed in the car for a photo, this is Camaro music.

We abruptly turn down the radio as we cross back into Orleans Parish and make our way into the Lower Ninth Ward. Children should be coming back from school about now, but the streets are nearly empty. The only sounds are those of distant construction -- work continues on higher levees here and all over town -- and chained-up dogs barking. The roads here are the worst we've seen in the city. The Camaro's independent rear suspension and stiff structure take the bumps and divots in stride, but this is nevertheless no place for a convertible. The raison d'être for top-down cruising is to take in the sights and sounds of the outside world. Here, the sights and sounds overwhelmingly are those of abandonment and misery. Most of the homes remain as the water left them, with caved-in walls, blue tarp roofs, and rubble-filled yards. Next to each door, faded spray-paint Xs -- the rushed written language of rescue workers -- tell the human tragedy. No one found in this house, two bodies in another. Every other block or so, one finds a rebuilt house -- the population stands at about twenty percent of pre-Katrina levels and is slowly growing -- but these homes, usually fenced off and patrolled by one of those dogs, hardly have the feel of a happy homecoming. A woman leaning out of her window as we idle on her lonely street describes life in the Lower Ninth as "OK." "What could be better?" we ask her. "A whole lot could be better," she replies resignedly.

Even here one can find signs of rebuilding among the devastation. There's a whole division of environmentally sound, modern homes built with help from actor Brad Pitt and charitable organizations. At present, none of these homes would realistically sell for market value. The hope is that, eventually, they'll stimulate natural redevelopment, but when we pass through, there seem to be more people shooting photos and videos of the bizarre-looking houses than there are actual residents. On the north side, by the infamous levee, University of Colorado students have built a viewing platform looking out on the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle, the marsh that once afforded this area storm protection and perhaps will again if wetland-restoration efforts succeed. Sixty-three-year-old native John Taylor, lifelong resident of an address that technically no longer exists, stands vigil over the platform. He nearly chases us away, but once he's convinced we're not "hoodlums," he philosophizes on where his city went wrong. "We forgot what was most important -- each other."

Back in the French Quarter later that evening, a street performer named Stick's (he insists on the apostrophe) also speaks of the need for communal responsibility. He is selling CDs to help children in the Iberville housing project. Or maybe he's a con man who cheated us out of $20. The sun is setting and music is already thumping as the bars open their doors for the night's debauchery. With a maze of one-way streets and police barricades, the Quarter is a nightmarish place to drive. We take advantage of our snail's pace by making a racket. Automatic-equipped SS convertibles need a slightly modified exhaust to hide the sound of cylinder deactivation, but our stick-shifted car requires only a blip of the throttle to send sweet pushrod V-8 music resonating through the balconies, the occasional pop-pop of overrun turning heads once more. "You know what this city is based on?" Stick's asks rhetorically -- before he takes our $20 without handing us a CD. "This city is based on music."

Having seen the miles upon miles of still-fresh devastation, we wonder how true his statement is. You might also wonder how a zaftig, impractical convertible really helps GM. Indeed, the jazz players, the cuisine, and the charming shysters of the French Quarter won't save New Orleans any more than a throwback muscle car will save GM, but that's OK. If you want to get a realistic picture of General Motors and New Orleans, rent a Chevy Cruze from Avis and drive east toward Saint Bernard Parish. That won't tell you why each entity was worth saving, but we will: the jazz bands, the gumbo, the French Quarter characters, and the top-down, dumped-clutch, tire-squealing thrill of the Camaro convertible.

We'd need six months in New Orleans to visit every highly recommended restaurant. If you're in town, ask every local you meet about the places they patronize. Here are the few we can vouch for:

Deanie's Seafood841 Iberville Street
504-581-1316
deanies.com

If you can stand a little -- OK, a lot -- of noise with your dinner, this casual dining restaurant will do fine. The menu is packed with New Orleans staples, and unlike some other seafood restaurants, the portions-and the drinks-are generous enough to satisfy the most demanding appetites.

Café du Monde800 Decatur Street
504-525-4544
cafedumonde.com

A New Orleans classic and a popular tourist stop for good reason. We highly recommend the perfectly fried, sugar-dusted beignets -- a good thing, since that's the only food item on the menu. The French Quarter location is open twenty-four hours a day, making it the perfect final indulgence after a long, lively night.

Bon Ton Café401 Magazine Street
504-524-3386
thebontoncafe.com

You can order your food as spicy as you like here, but owners Wayne and Debbie Pierce say the authentic Cajun (not to be confused with Creole) food they serve needs no hot sauce at all. They should know, since this is the oldest surviving Cajun restaurant in the city.

The Chevrolet Camaro is an American icon and has been hugely popular muscle car for many years. The Camero was temporarily taken off the market for about 7 years and when it was brought back there was an amazing amount of interest and build up demand from muscle car lovers. The new styling brought back what some car lovers remember from the very early models, a more boxy design with sharp lines make the new Camaro unmistakable and very alluring.

The high end Camaro offers a huge 426 horsepower engine for the manual transmission or a 400 horsepower engine for the automatic. The release of this classic muscle car back into the wild has made a huge stir in the automotive industry because many thought that the Camaro was gone forever.

The Camaro is back in a big way and if its sales continue to grow, this hotrod will be around for many more years to come. The re-release of this car is expected to start a battle of the muscle cars that, this will be interesting to see. The newest Camaro starts out at $22,680 but comes nicely equipped at $25,680.

Twenty years ago this month, John Hennessey launched tuning company Hennessey Performance as a way to help fund his need for speed. The company is still going strong today, so to celebrate, Hennessey announced a limited run of 20 special-edition Chevrolet Camaros.

Industry research groups IntelliChoice and AutoPacific have released the results of the 2011 Motorist Choice Awards. Based on survey data from 72,000 vehicle owners, the awards are given to vehicles with high consumer satisfaction ratings and lower-than-average ownerships costs. Awards are split across 15 vehicle categories and are subdivided into “Popular” and “Premium” vehicle choices.

As one of the most well-known emblems in the automotive industry, the Chevy bowtie remains a symbol of the American brand’s long and storied history – having changed little since its introduction in 1913. Although one version of its origin story has been relayed most by fans and media alike, Chevy says that there are yet other explanations for how the bowtie came to be.

Hot Wheels has created yet another toy that is guaranteed to bring out the inner kid in all of us. Nitro Speeders are the fastest remote control cars yet, capable of launching forward at a scale speed of 600 mph in less than a second.

We saw the Chevrolet Camaro perform all sorts of outlandish stunts in the Transformers movies, but it may be unwise to replicate such antics in the real world. Though sports cars like the Camaro are designed to be driven hard, the unfortunate driver and passenger in this video found that every car has limits.

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Sound & Entertainment

Warranty

Recalls

Recall Date

12-31-1969:21:35:40

Component

ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:IGNITION

Summary

General Motors LLC (GM) is recalling all 2010-2014 Chevrolet Camaro vehicles manufactured December 3, 2008 to May 23, 2014. In the affected vehicles, the driver may accidentally hit the ignition key with their knee, unintentionally knocking the key out of the run position, turning off the engine.

Consequences

If the key is not in the run position, the air bags may not deploy if the vehicle is involved in a crash, increasing the risk of injury. Additionally, a key knocked out of the run position could cause loss of engine power, power steering, and power braking, increasing the risk of a vehicle crash.

Remedy

GM will notify owners, and dealers will remove the key blade from the original flip key/RKE transmitter assemblies, and provide two new keys and two key rings per key. The recall began August 25, 2014. Owners may contact Chevrolet customer service at 1-800-222-1020. GM's number for this recall is 14294. Note: Until the recall has been performed, it is very important that drivers adjust their seat and steering column to allow clearance between their knee and the ignition key.

Potential Units Affected

464,712

Notes

General Motors LLC

Recall Date

12-31-1969:21:35:40

Component

SEATS:FRONT ASSEMBLY:POWER ADJUST

Summary

General Motors LLC (GM) is recalling certain model year 2011-2012 Buick LaCrosse, Regal and Chevrolet Camaro, as well as certain 2010-2012 Cadillac SRX, Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain vehicles, equipped with power height adjustable driver and passenger seats. In the affected vehicles, the bolt that secures the driver's and passenger's power front seat height adjuster may fall out causing the seat to drop suddenly to the lowest vertical position.

Consequences

If the driver's seat unexpectedly drops, the distraction and altered seat position may affect the drivers' control of the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash.

Remedy

GM will notify owners, and dealers will replace the height adjuster shoulder bolts, free of charge. The manufacturer distributed interim letters to owners on September 11, 2014. The recall began on December 26, 2014. Owners may contact GM customer service at 1-800-521-7300 (Buick), 1-800-458-8006 (Cadillac), 1-800-222-1020 (Chevrolet), or 1-800-462-8782 (GMC). GM's number for this recall is 14271.